*I received a free copy of this book, with thanks to the author. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
The Ones That Stare takes us into a typical suburban neighbourhood, where everyone has secrets and there always seems to be someone watching – at least, that’s how main character, Darien feels. And he has more than his fair share of secrets to keep from prying eyes, after all, he’s just killed his wife.
From the very beginning, I found myself completely exasperated with Darien, who must be just about the most incompetent criminal ever – he leaves evidence lying around in full view, lets his neighbours nosy around, and seems to get blood and hairs everywhere, in plain sight! However, Darien is a self-confessed liar – graduated from Novice, to Competent, then Expert Liar by the time we meet him – and so the reader has to wonder whether he is telling us the truth, or whether one or more of his neighbours is expertly toying with him.
The premise of knowing who the murderer is from the beginning and trying to solve the mystery of the witness is a clever one, as is the way the author is able to tie up all of the inconsistencies and errors by the end of the narrative, and slowly build up some sympathy and understanding for a man who murdered his beloved wife in cold blood, after abusing and controlling her for years.
These clever hooks also bring their own problems though, as the author explains in his afterword that the story was deliberately frustrating and difficult, in order to put the reader in the right frame of mind to understand the characters more fully. This works very effectively, but perhaps too effectively, as not all readers may persevere long enough to realise the story is leading somewhere and many may just give up early on because they can’t make sense of what is going on.
This is a claustrophobic domestic mystery-thriller which utilises some very clever and unique – but also very risky – narrative strategies. Anyone looking for something very different, requiring more engagement and application for the reader, should give this a go. Keep reading through the ‘errors’ and I promise you it will all make sense in the end… the author knows what he is doing here!
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
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Domestic mystery-thriller which utilises some very clever, but also very risky, narrative strategies
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2021